Professor was speechless; Mr. Johnson was hysterical.

"Bofe dead?" queried the chair.

"My new ulcer 'n' my skyarf 'n' dicer!" gasped Mr. Johnson.

"My sealskin ovahcote 'n' a dozen cigyahs 'n' a hat," hoarsely whispered the Professor.

"Dey ain't-ain't no murdah?" exclaimed the Rev. Mr. Thankful Smith, upon whom a light was beginning to break.

"No, but dey will be ef I evah kotches Toot

Copyright, 1839, White & Allen, New York. effort, the Rev. Mr. Thankful Smith rapped for order and then said, impressively:

Niggahs, dat Beesly eppysode was a fake, 'n' Bre'r Williams 'n' Bre'r Whiffles am sot up in secon' han' clothin' fer de wintah. Doan' spoke nuffin', coons. Jes' pile in de coal in de stove 'n' set aroun' 'n' wizzle, 'n' I'll borry de jannyter's ovahcote 'n' hat 'n' git out de perlice 'n' de milishy 'n' wake up de kentry wif a howl fer justice. Doan' spoke nuffin', niggahs."-From. Lectures before the Thompson Street Poker Club.

LE CHEVALIER BAYARD.

"In what cunning school of arms were you apprenticed?"

"In the school of a hardy and abstemious youth. My father served the king until enfeebled by age, and from him my brothers and I learned the use of weapons, and such sports and exercises as become a soldier, and, further, to read a little, and to write our names, and to know the same again when written. I spent I spent my days in the air, among men, and thereby escaped the vanities with which the children of the rich cumber and exhaust themselves, and which it takes half a lifetime to cast off.

"I have spent most of my life at our Château de Bayard. My first boyish recollection is of being put on a pony and taught to tilt with a rod at a wooden figure fixed in the ground, which was called 'l'Anglais.' My delight was in long rides, especially in spring, or in the early autumn, when a golden flush falls on our hillsides in Dauphiné. And in winter I scoured the forests for game, and loved each day as well as the brighter afternoons of summer."

"Merely riding and hunting makes a dull life," observed Ludovico, interested in the odd character of his visitor. "Did your father never take you to court?"

"Our fortune is too scant for courts or journeyings," answered Le Bayard, without hesitation; "only, when a tourney was proclaimed at some neighboring city, he took my brothers and me thither, and hired us suits of armor and bade us lay on."

"He must be a tough-fibred veteran, this father of yours."

"He trains us after the manner of his own bringing up, whose maxim is written on the fly-leaf of our Bible, that nothing purifies the spirit like suffering, and that the grandest things in life are done under adversity."

"I, for one, should differ with the fly-leaf of your Bible, and say that the best efforts are those kindled by love. You will find it so some day when you marry."

"That must remain a lesson unread by me." "And why?"

"Because I have taken a vow of lifelong celibacy."

"But a time will come when you can no longer ride fiery steeds, and deal hurts, and smite the stranger. And when old age steals upon you, will it not be a sombre life to look back upon-no love, no children, no pleasure, no solace?"

The French cavalier answered slowly, yet with the fervor of a young crusader.

"So few," he said, "reach the age whereof you warn me, that I give it small heed. But, standing now between youth and maturity, my purpose is so to serve the king that, when my vigor is past, my conscience may pronounce me worthy to kiss the earthly sepulchre of Christ. Think you that after that I could ever be unhappy in the retrospect?"

"You talk like a sage, and you fight like the knights we read of; alas, they are not many nowadays."

"I shall not be thus commended by my superiors; I may even be severely punished."

"Punished! and how do the French punish one another's deeds of valor?"

"My folly may be rebuked by ordering me to the rear on the day when we have the honor to meet you in the field."

"You have a good thirst for the giving and getting of blows." rejoined Ludovico; "but," he added, "do you imagine that so redoubtable an enemy will be released, now that fortune has put you in our hands?"

"I have already agreed with the captain whose prisoner I am; he consents to release me, with my horse and armor, for a thousand ducats, and that sum will be paid from the French camp to-morrow."

The duke's interest had passed from curiosity to an admiration he did not seek to conceal.

"God forbid," he said abruptly and with emotion," that so valiant a soldier should be detained for the sake of a purse of gold. I will pay your ransom myself; you are at liberty to return at once to your comrades; and if this adventure bring you to the presence of the king, say that I charged you to salute him in my name." Le Bayard sprang to his feet, his pale face suddenly aglow with delight at the magnanimous spirit which released him. He took the duke's hand, and would have saluted it with the courtly reverence of that ceremonious age. But Ludovico checked him, and drawing from his finger a ring, gave it to him and bade him Godspeed, and caused his horse and armor to be brought.

And twenty-three years after, when le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche lay dying upon an unfortunate battlefield, he pressed to his lips the reliquary of Yolande de Fruzasco with the passionate despair of one who dwells, in death, upon remembered kisses; then his gaze turned from the strange faces of the Spaniards who crowded about, and rested, it is said, upon the ring of Ludovico Sforza, as though its sight recalled some rare and chivalric memory, worthy to be cherished even in the last moment of life. -WILLIAM WALDORF ASTOR, in Sforza.

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